Year-Round Schools

Historical Background

Beliefs to the contrary notwithstanding, year-round schooling does not necessarily mean less vacation time for students and staff. The traditional school year calendar, with its early morning start times and 10- to 15-week summer breaks, was designed when most American families were earning a living by farming or running family businesses. At the time, school calendars revolved around the planting, cultivating, and harvesting of crops and working for the family farm or business so that children could be home to help during the busiest summer months. Schools retained this agrarian calendar after farming declined and the nation became more industrial, in part because it was difficult to conduct classes during the hot summer months without air-conditioning.

Beginning with Stuart v. School District No. 1 of Village of Kalamazoo (1874), the American legal system has recognized that local school boards, in addition to state legislatures, have the authority to engage in new educational initiatives. American schools began experimenting with a switch to year-round schedules on a larger scale during the early 1900s, and the idea began to take root in the 1970s and 1980s as studies demonstrated that American students were not scoring well on national and international tests.

According to the National Association for Year-Round Education (NAYRE), the trend is growing; more than 3,000 schools had year-round education programs during the 2006–2007 academic year. Previously, NAYRE reported that the number of year-round schools in the United States increased from just over 400 in the late 1980s to 2,880 during the 1999–2000 school year. While this represents less [Page 906]than 4% of all schools, it is 4 times the number of students in year-round schools only a few years ago.

Advantages

Interest in implementing year-round schools can be attributed to three acknowledged advantages of such a calendar: increased student achievement; greater satisfaction among parents, teachers, and students; and cost savings. The first two are often mentioned in conjunction with all year-round schools, while cost savings are typically associated only with multitrack, year-round schools, as they can help postpone the need to build new schools in areas experiencing significant population growth.

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